Funny and kind, Chef
is a feel-good movie that sent me home with a smile on my face.
In the film, John
Favreau plays a workaholic chef. He's divorced. He doesn't spend
enough time with his son. He works for a restaurateur who's a
businessman first and an epicurean second. He's miserable. When he
loses his job and must start anew with a dilapidated food truck,
things seem about as bad as they can get.
And then he
remembers how much he loves cooking good food for people who
appreciate it. Oh, and he bonds with his son, finds happiness, and
so forth (That last sentence isn't a spoiler unless you've never been
to the movies before.).
Think
of Chef as cinematic
comfort food, the motion picture equivalent of a grilled-cheese
sandwich. Now, a grilled-cheese sandwich can be Velveeta on Wonder
Bread hot off the Foreman Grill, or it can be a carefully chosen mix
of cheeses on fresh-baked bread and grilled -just so- on a hot
skittle with hand-drawn butter. Chef is
the latter. It's genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny not just in its
acting, but in its composition and editing. It boasts characters of
depth and heart, people you'd be happy to call your friends. It
photographs food and the process of its preparation with delight.
It's just a joy, and it's putting a smile on my face even now, as I
write about it days later.
See
Chef and be happy.
